I've built before, but haven't done so since SATA and PCI-Express became commonplace. Are there things to keep in mind for these new technologies that don't matter for IDE and AGP/PCI stuff? Both for installation and BIOS settings, etc?

Not too much. You just have to be sure to turn SATA on in the bios. Also, when installing windows, you will need a floppy disk drive (they may change this in vista I am not sure yet). The floppy is for the drivers for the SATA drive and windows doesn't come with them. It will only check floppy disk also http://www.gvtcomputers.com

You will only need a SATA driver disk to install Windows if the SATA controller you are using is not "native" to the motherboard. Most new motherboards have native controllers for SATA and a driver disk is not needed. My current machine has a mobo with the NForce4 Chipset and did not need a driver disk when I installed Windows. Some boards have two sets of SATA ports - one set runs off a controller that is native to the motherboard chipset and a 2nd set is run through a 3rd party controller. If this is the case, be sure you are using a port from the chipset controller - otherwise you will need the driver disk. With regards to PCI Express, there is not much difference if you plan on running 1 card. If you want to run two cards (SLI or Crossfire) you will need to decide what brand you want to go with (NVidia for SLI or ATI for Crossfire) and purchase a motherboard that supports it. Both are a little unnecessary at the moment, IMHO. By the time that 2 good video cards would be needed to run a game smoothly, 1 new card would be able to outperform both and it would have additional features and functionality (e.g. DX10) Michael J

Most, if not all (SATA supported) motherboards sold today don't even require separate (floppy based) SATA drivers as a fundamental need for SATA disks to be installed correctly, or for Windows XP to install without a problem. These board allows for IDE (PATA) emulation by the SATA controllers & very often you don't even have to manually change this in the BIOS, but you should check your specific motherboard's BIOS, to see if you have to manually set this to the IDE (PATA)mode.

Looks like hairmetal's "post-a-thon" has caught up with him....lol

It has. Thanks for the help!

Maybe you didn't understand what I meant by that. It appears that all your numerous posts from the past few days have been deleted by the moderator(s) & now you're left with just this one.